May is here, and not a moment too soon. I may be overly optimistic, but I think (or hope) we can now safely trade our snow shovels and boots for garden hoes and flip-flops. Here’s the round-up of neighborhood news this month:

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Many in the Southeast community are remembering the valuable work of longtime resident Margaret Messenheimer, who died March 5 at the age of 97. For the past five years, Messenheimer had lived with her daughter Mary in Cincinnati, but prior to that, she was a leading member of the Southeast Minneapolis community for 53 years. Among other accomplishments, she founded the Southeast Minneapolis Meals on Wheels program, where she was a board member and a helper for 25 years. A memorial service for Messenheimer was held on April 20 at First Congregational Church of Minnesota, UCC, where she was a member for 56 years.

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A big congratulations to Marcy-Holmes resident and celebrity chef Alex Roberts, of both Restaurant Alma and Brasa Rotisserie, who has been nominated for a 2008 James Beard Award for best chef in the Midwest. Winners will be announced in New York City on June 8. Brasa fans will be happy to know the restaurant is now open seven days a week and Roberts has added slow-roasted beef and a selection of wonderful sandwiches to the menu. Check it out.

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Two blocks down Southeast Sixth Street from Brasa sits the fire station for Engine 11, the oldest firefighting unit in the city, which officially turned 150 on April 19. According to Ron Pearson of the Firefighters Hall and Museum, that makes it “the oldest continually operating firefighting company serving Minneapolis.”

The unit began service on April 19, 1858, as “Cataract Engine Company No. 1” in what was then the town of St. Anthony. At the time, its equipment included leather buckets, ropes, chains and a few ladders. In later reorganizations, including the merger of St. Anthony and Minneapolis in 1872, the unit was renamed Engine 11.

The unit has seen plenty of action in its 150 years. In the last year alone, it was one of the first units to respond to the collapse of the I-35W bridge, and it saved the home of Marcy-Holmes residents Penny Petersen and Ted Tucker from burning to the ground. Happy sesquicentennial Engine 11!

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And speaking of old-timers (not as old as 150, though), a big Sydney Pratt reunion is being planned for this June. According to organizers, the class that finished sixth grade in the spring of 1950 will be coming together for the first time in nearly 60 years. On June 23, participants will tour their old classrooms at Pratt, followed by a 2:30 p.m. public reception sponsored by the Pratt Council.

If you’re interested in attending, RSVP to the Pratt Community Education office so they can estimate numbers (612-668-1108). For direct contact with the class, call Hugh Olmsted in Boston at 781-396-4143 or email him at hugh_olmsted@comcast.net.

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Been to the Red Stag Supper Club yet? The restaurant, at 509 NE First St., will be the site for the next gathering of the R&R Social Club on Wednesday, May 14, 5:30–9:30 p.m. Come and socialize with other riverfront denizens and enjoy great food, games and prizes. For more info, see www.rrsocialclub.com.

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Congratulations and a big thank you to Deputy Chief Steve Johnson, who retired on April 30 after more than 30 years of service with the University of Minnesota Police Department (UMPD). Johnson started as a student worker at the U in 1970 and joined the UMPD in 1976 as a student intern in the crime prevention office. He officially joined the staff in April of 1979. Johnson handled press calls, among other things, for the UMPD; Lt. Chuck Miner will handle that duty until a replacement is hired.

Johnson plans to dive into his woodworking, he said. He does cabinet and furniture building on the side and has been remodeling his house; now friends want him to work on their houses, he said, but he’s not looking to start a business.

“This [UMPD] job I’ve been doing tends to consume,” he said, adding that he looks forward to doing “a lot of the things I used to do, like canoeing and fishing.” Don’t we all.

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Great news from South High School! Three of the state’s seven National Achievement Scholarship winners are from South: Roy Cato, Nelson Iginla, and Dane Schaleben-Boating. More than 14,000 students in the nation entered the 2008 competition, which had 800 winners. Each winning student will receive a $2,500 college scholarship award.

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Finally, those in the Seward community and beyond are mourning the death of Joe Kress, an accomplished ceramics artist who passed away at the age of 50 on April 16. Kress had been at Northern Clay Center as one of its original studio artists since its beginnings in the early 1990s, and he received his second McKnight Fellowship through the center in 2007.

Emily Galusha, director at Northern Clay, called Kress’s work elegant, beautiful and “deceptively simple in form. … His skill with the medium took it beyond simple craftsmanship — which is important — to something that had more meaning to it,” she said. “There’s a lot of complex information — in the colors and the form, the finish, and in the shapes themselves — that had reference for him to landscapes and structures. I thought they were really successful pieces,” she said. “He was also a really lovely guy.”

Kress’s recent work is expected to be featured in Northern Clay’s planned McKnight artists exhibit, which opens in July.

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Do you have community news you’d like to share? Send it to Linda Lincoln at
lmlincoln@comcast.net.

last revised: May 15, 2008

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